Postcards from Suwa
by Dale Neibaur, 1975
Sun comes up on another day.
Wake up
And look around you.
This could easily be a very special day
So wake up
And look around you.
Ever wonder why the sky is blue
And clouds are colored white?
Ever looked in awe at a crystal lake
Reflecting the mountain vastness
Of a wilderness?
I've watched the mountains through the winter time
And climbed up
Through the spring's first wild flowers.
I've gathered bright red autumn leaves
From the topmost bough
Of the highest tree
On the biggest hill of them all.
I've chased summer streamlets into dappled pools
Then stood and watched the sun dance in the trees
Where no one else was close enough
To see me.
Other times
Were city days;
Crowded streets
And city ways.
Parks and shrines and shopping places
And people rushing by.
Looking out for pretty faces,
But we didn't see eye to eye
On what was best in life.
I'm looking for the best in life.
If home is the place where you hang your hat
I don't have a home;
I don't own a hat.
But if home is the place
You always dream about
I guess you're my home:
You and the mountains
You and the wilderness
You and the places that we both have seen
And the places where we'd like to have been.
Sure I'm a long way from home right now
And certainly I've many things to do.
I'm almost always busy --
But every time the sun sets
I watch it fall
I watch it light the waters and I think of you
And just for those few moments
I'm home.
[I wrote "Postcards from Suwa" in the late fall of my first year in Japan. It was written as a song sent to my girlfriend on the back of a series of picture postcards; one line on each numbered card. Suwa is a beautiful town in the Japanese Alps, just a few miles from where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held. It nestles among foothills around a beautiful lake. Most evenings found us biking a path along the lake shore, moving from one appointment to another as the sun set. The sky would catch fire, and the lake burned too.
It costs too much to send a song on postcards, and they get all mixed up in transit. This was my only attempt at a postcard poem.]